Homebrew In Focus Andy Parker from Elusive Brewing meets the husband and wife team at Baker’s Dozen

Caught by the Undertow

Elusive Brewing’s Andy Parker, who was recently named Brewer of the Year by the Guild of British Beer Writers, meets one half of the husband and wife team behind Baker’s Dozen brewery, Dean Baker, to find out more about the origins of his New England IPA, Undertow…

Baker's Dozen Brewing Co. Undertow

WINNER best craft keg beer East of England

OG: 1047 FG: 1010 ABV 4.8%

Grain Bill:

Simpsons Low Colour Golden Promise 4kg (80%) Simpsons Golden Naked Oats 500g (10%) Weyermann Carapils 500g (10%)

Hops:

13g Citra 15 mins 13g Nelson Sauvin 15 mins 25g Citra 3 mins 25g Nelson Sauvin 3 mins 37g Citra F/O 37g Nelson Sauvin F/O

Dry Hop (@ 1020) 62g Citra 62g Nelson Sauvin

A visit to New Hampshire for a friend’s wedding in 2013 started a love affair with New England IPAs for husband and wife team Dean and Jill Baker, two years before Baker’s Dozen would brew their first commercial beers.

Dean recalls the moment fondly: “Being the diligent planner that I am, I started looking around for breweries during our stay in Boston and came across a new start-up brewery called Trillium that had been going for just a couple of months. When we arrived at the brewery, they didn't have a licence to drink on the premises and were only doing growler fills, but there were a few bars just down the road where we could try their beers. On the 23rd of August 2013 I tried my first New England IPAs. I forget the name of the bar but remember trying Congress Street and Fort Point. They were thick and murky in appearance with an incredible aroma. Both fresh and amazingly fruity on the palate with a fairly low level of bitterness.”

Trillium has since gained a reputation for brewing some of the world’s best examples of the New England IPA style and the brewery’s beers are highly sought after. However, like the origins of this now ubiquitous style, the story of how Baker’s Dozen came into being started much earlier. “My parents used to run pubs, so I grew up in the trade and have always loved cask beer,” explains Dean. “I cut my teeth in and around Nottingham on Home Ales Bitter. And in 2005 Jill and I took on our own pub in Stamford (The Jolly Brewer) where cask beer was our focus. In wanting to run the best business that we could, we sought to educate ourselves, staff and customers as much as possible about the products that we were serving them, and that's probably the beginning of our story.” Around the same time, John Kimmich of The Alchemist Brewery in Waterbury (Vermont) was developing his recipe for Heady Topper – widely recognised as the origin of the New England IPA style. This thirst for knowledge about the product they were serving at the Jolly Brewer inevitably lead Dean towards learning to brew: “I was quite keen to learn more about the brewing process and how different styles were produced and that's when it all started to get out of hand! In early 2012 I went on a brewing course at Brewlab in Sunderland, then bought a 50 litre brew kit. Several brews later and we were planning on either spending all our savings on buying a house or a load of stainless steel, hard work and sleepless nights. We still don't own a house!” Baker’s Dozen moved into its commercial brewing premises in 2015 and, inspired by those early encounters with the New England styles, has gone on to win several regional awards including overall winner in the 2022 SIBA East Keg Competition with New England Pale Ale, Undertow.

“To my mind, those early examples I tried had a little more bitterness than the New England style beers that we see in our bars and bottle shops nowadays,” Dean reflects, “So when we looked to brew our first commercial example we wanted to look back to our first experience of the style and add that little extra dimension to the beer, that for my taste is often missing - an undertow of bitterness.”

The New England style is characterised by its juicy, citrus and floral hop notes, with a heavy emphasis on aroma. They are hazy in appearance and generally have a much lower bitterness than other sub-categories of the IPA style. They are known for having a full, smooth mouthfeel. In constructing the recipe for Undertow, Dean focused on that aspect: “The grist is fairly simple, but makes sure there's plenty of body for that full mouthfeel. A decent whack of Carapils ensures there's plenty of dextrins to cling on to those hop compounds and the Golden Naked Oats give a creamy silky finish.”

To layer the citrus notes, the beer is fermented with a New England yeast strain, which is pitched at 18C and allowed to free-rise to 19C. Dry hops are added during active fermentation, when the beer reaches 1.020. This serves two purposes, as Dean explains: “This has the added benefit of both utilising biotransformation of hop compounds as well as allowing us to carbonate the beer naturally using the spunding valve.” After dry hopping, the beer is left at 19C for one day before being allowed to naturally rise to 22C for a diacetyl rest before being cold crashed and packaged.

So when we looked to brew our first commercial example we wanted to look back to our first experience of the style and add that little extra dimension to the beer, that for my taste is often missing.